I was intrigued by the launch of HIP’s Kohl Eyeliners, as I’d been dying to try the Guerlain Kohls but just couldn’t bring myself to fork over that kinda cash for something I might or might nor use. These are the first powder liners I’ve tried, and I must admit that I’m very impressed by the quality of these.

Hip’s Kohl Eyeliners are very very pigmented, and contrary to the lumpy appearance of the loose powder on the applicator, apply smoothly. Well what about lasting power? Thanks to the rich pigmentation these actually stay put really well, but I did have some trouble with smudging on my upper lash line which isn’t surprising since I have very oily eyelids. I do love these for the waterline though–they makes for a great pop of color that lasts for hours on end.

The bad? Well the applicator leaves a little something to be desired. It’s rather rigidly constructed, and the stiffness makes for difficult application (at least for uncoordinated lil’ old me) and tons of fallout.

The Navy shade is a great, softer alternative to black liner. But the shade I’m really loving is the Gold–the metallic shade really pops against my skin and creates a great gilded summer eye.

Please excuse these terrible EOTD shots. Lack of time + terrible lighting = crappy makeup job =X. But I decided to go ahead and post so that you can see what the kohls look like on. Now that’s love!

I’m wearing the Navy Kohl on my upper eyelid and the Gold Kohl along my waterliner. As you can see, the Navy started smudging a bit pretty much immediately post-application, but the gold stayed true almost all day.

If you’ve been wanting to try Kohl Eyeliners L’Oreal HIP’s are definitely a nice way to start. They’re relatively affordable, come in a nice range of eye-popping hues and the packaging is pretty hard to beat. Now if HIP would only package these so that you could tell if they’d been opened or not (a little pastic wrap never hurt anbody) they’d be set!